Loss and Gain
by Luanna255
Summary: Hannah receives the news of her mother's death, and Neville comforts her. Set in Deathly Hallows. Neville/Hannah, slight Neville/Luna. Doesn't have to be construed as romantic.


**Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own any of these characters.**

**Author's Note: This takes place in _Half-Blood Prince_, right after Hannah gets the news of her mother's death. The death of Hannah's mother is canon, as is her getting called to the office to be told about it and then subsequently leaving for the reast of the year. I assumed that Professor Sprout would have been there as she is the head of Hufflepuff. I took the liberty of adding how Hannah took the news and the scene after it with Neville, but this is still completely canon. As a diehard Neville/Luna shipper, I kind of can't believe that I'm writing this, but I was re-reading _Half-Blood Prince _and the idea took hold. I did still sneak some Neville/Luna in at the end, though. I hope you find this as emotional as it should be. **

**Please Review!**

Loss and Gain

_My mother is dead._

Hannah Abbott whispered the words softly to herself. Maybe if she said them out loud, it would start feeling real. She tried to summon a proper response, the proper emotion. _Was _there even a proper emotion? All she could feel inside was a numb, terrible calm.

_My mother is dead._

She was only dimly aware of Professor Dumbledore and Professor Sprout staring at her worriedly. She seemed to exist only within herself, her world comprised of her thought and emotions. Everything else seemed blurry and irrelevant.

_My mother is dead._

Should she have said something by now? She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, perfectly calm, perfectly silent. Time was irrelevant now, too.

"Hannah?" Professor Sprout put a comforting hand on Hannah's shoulder. Hannah stared detachedly at it for a moment, then flinched away. She didn't want people touching her now. Other people were too loud, too warm, too _real_. She wanted to shrivel up inside of herself, away from the real world, and float away from it all. She wanted to curl up in her bed and go to sleep forever.

"Hannah?" Professor Sprout repeated. "You'll want to go and pack your things. Your father will be here to pick you up in an hour."

Hannah nodded mutely. _Her father. _Maybe when she saw him, saw his face, it would feel real.

_Her father_. It was his fault they'd killed her mother. His fault for being a muggle. Not that she blamed him for it. Or did she?

In stories, love was supposed to conquer all. Even Professor Dumbledore seemed to think it was true. But in real life, love had killed her mother. They'd killed her for loving a muggle. Hannah smiled darkly at the irony, feeling something bright and innocent fade out inside herself.

"Miss Abbott…" Dumbledore said softly. "Hannah. I'm so sorry."

"My mother is dead." Hannah said, finding her voice at last. It seemed too loud and too calm to belong to her. She felt as though she were listening to someone else talk for her. Dumbledore nodded.

"Well. Thank you for telling me." Hannah said. Her voice was perfectly, hideously normal and steady. She might have been thanking him for giving her a lemon drop. She hated herself.

She stood. "I'd better go pack now" she added, walking out of Dumbledore's office.

_One. Two. Three. Four. _

Hannah looked at her feet as she walked, carefully counting steps. She couldn't look up at the bright, bustling everyday-ness of school. School wasn't real, either. She was in her own bubble. Her insides were her world.

_Five. Six. Seven. Eight._

_My mother is dead._

It still didn't feel real.

Hannah kept looking at her Mary Janes. That was all there was. Just her Mary Janes moving forward, one step at a time.

_Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve._

Hannah was suddenly jolted back into the real world as she felt herself bump into something solid.

Some_one _solid.

She looked up to see Neville Longbottom surrounded by a mass of fallen books and papers.

"I-I'm sorry" she stammered. She started to bend down to help him pick them up when she noticed that his eyes were focused on her face rather than his fallen possessions.

Completely ignoring the mess at his feet, Neville took Hannah's hand and gently pulled her into an empty classroom. "Hannah, are you all right?" he asked, his round face concerned.

Hannah nodded awkwardly. She barely knew Neville Longbottom. "It – it's my-"

She watched Neville's face fill with horror was he caught on.

"Oh, god, it _is _real." Hannah gasped, feeling it hit her like a blow to the stomach. She doubled over, shaking with sobs. Neville looked at her with something akin to terror, as he was unused to comforting crying girls, and then awkwardly put his arms around her. She clung to him, soaking his shirt with her tears.

"_How?_" Hannah sobbed, her voice cracking with pain. "How are they just _allowed _to _do _that? To tear a family apart, to make someone _gone _from this world? Just… just _not there_? How can that be?"

Neville held her silently, stroking her blonde hair. He felt her words pierce him sharply. His parents might not be dead, but they were definitely _not there_.

"Hannah," he said, feeling a sudden urge to confide in her. "Do you know why I live with my grandmother?"

Hannah looked up at him wordlessly, then shook her head.

"When I was one year old," Neville said slowly, "a group of Death Eaters came after my parents, looking for information about You-Know-Who. They tortured them with the Cruciatus Curse, and when my parents wouldn't tell them anything, the Death Eaters kept torturing them until they went insane."

It felt good to say it, in a way.

"I never knew that," Hannah whispered, shocked.

Neville nodded. "I don't like to tell people. I don't like the sympathy… you know? When I see that pity in people's eyes, that's when it feels…"

"Real?" Hannah finished softly.

"Yeah," Neville agreed. "But Hannah… it _isn't_ natural, what the Death Eaters do. But I swear this; they won't be allowed to do it much longer. Because we're going to stop them. We're going to make them pay for my parents and your mother and every evil, unnatural thing they've ever done. We're going to fight them with everything we've got, and _we're going to make them pay_. I promise you that."

His voice, which was usually shy and stuttering, was strong and determined. Hannah found that she felt safe in his arms. She snuggled closer to him, burying her face in his chest, wishing he could hold her forever. Neville wrapped his arms more tightly around her and closed his eyes.

Neither of them could have said how long they stayed there like that. Time seemed to flicker in and out of reality as they held each other, neither one wanting to let go. But if they had looked up some time later, they might have glimpsed a pair of wide silvery eyes watching them through the window in shocked, hurt silence, before the watcher, with a muffled gasp, turned and ran away, her long hair flowing behind her.


End file.
